Overpriced strop

I’ve been using my chisels to make M&T joints. I’ve been taking breaks and honing them every 10-12 mortises. I thought, well I should really get a leather strop and chrome oxide to make a finer edge. I went to woodcraft and picked up the chrome oxide, < $10, pretty cheap.

The strops started at $28, and went up to $45. Are you kidding me? I bought a piece of leather at a craft store, $6 and that was probably over priced. Took it home and glued it to a piece of pine. I have enough leather left over to make 2 more.

I’m willing to pay for a tool. I’ll pay for a convenience if it saves me enough time and gas. But this was too much.

BJ

Rant over!

21 replies so far

But, but it has a flat piece of wood and a piece of leather glued to it. You need to spend $45 on that.

Seriously though, I’m with you, I found some leather scraps at a garage sale. I’ve heard they improve with washing, but haven’t tried it yet. I think I have enough extra that I could mail someone a piece if they need it.

Marketing 101 – Get the customer in for 1 cheap item (and have low profit margin on it) – but get them to buy that other item that they ‘need’ NOW which is overpriced (and make your money on that one to cover your loss of profit on the other ‘cheap’ item)...

Agreed BJ I did the same thing, looking at those strops at Woodcraft I just kind of thought ‘are you serious?’ .. I had some leather scraps I got from a lady who has her own Tack shop nearby, took a piece of the thickest leather in the bag, and used some 3m spray adhesive and glued to a piece of granite I had left over from a kitchen remodel last year. This is my first strop, and as I am a sharpening noob I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but I know its a flat surface and it seems to work well enough for me!

Maybe we should get into the homemade strop business! I could cut Woodcraft’s prices in half and still make $$ on it!

The best strops are made from horse butt shell leather, which is difficult to obtain these days and therefore more expensive. For chisels and plane blades you can probably get by with thick vegetable-tanned cow leather available online. But the straight razor set only use horse butt. One somewhat expensive strop that is probably well worth the money is from Tools for Working Wood, here.

Scott, I was talking to a guy who works at Woodcraft a while back and he was telling me what he pays for with his discount – it’s insanely low. Wish I could remember, and it varies with the stuff. I do remember thinking that the markup was more enormous than I had thought. You don’t get anywhere near the same kind of discount for a bandsaw as you do for chisels or whatnot, but the discount on the non-machinery made me want to start working there immediately. I like my store and the guys who work there are terrific but when I do buy there – like you – it’s almost always when stuff is on sale.

Doh. I’m outed! I’ve given several Ljs strops as a gift. Partly because I find them so useful, and partly because they are waaaay cheaper to make than to buy. I just get a big chunk of tooling leather from my upholstery buddy or like this on amazon. I wouldn’t use anything thinner than 8oz leather.